Herschel Porter in Roleplay

Physical Characteristics

Build and Skin Color: Slightly muscular, with a farmer's tan. Face, neck, and forearms appear tan, with the rest of the body showing his Caucasian roots.

Facial Features and Eye Color: Strong chin, smallish nose, brown eyes, and all of his teeth.

Hair Color and Style: Since basic training is over, he's working on growing his brown crew cut back into something long and unkempt.

Distinguishing Features: An inordinate fondness for eye accessories such as glasses and goggles, and a horizontal scar across his nose which he got from “basket-weaving.”

Psychological Characteristics

Personality: Like many Nepleslians, Herschel is motivated by personal gain. However, he prefers to gain in knowledge as opposed to more physical goods, because physical goods can be stolen. Something of a man of science, he finds that small doses of danger, taken regularly, allow him to think and concentrate better.

Likes: Martial Arts, Technology(Particularly Powered Armor), Reading, and DoujinshiDislikes: Heights, Stupid People, and certain vegetables like green peppersGoals: Eventually hopes to meet a nice Savtech JANE and settle down with a Yorna and a set of inventions, but for now is just coasting

History

Family (or Creators)

Father: Brice Porter (42)

Mother: Ilene Porter (43)

Pre-RP

Growing up Nepleslian is no picnic. Of course, that depends on your definition of picnic. If you define picnic as “the whole family dressed up in their sunday best going for a quiet drive to a majestic natural park where they can have fresh picked berries on their ice cream,” I'd have said you were crazy back at “quiet drive.” But if you consider fishing and hunting to be father-son bonding activities, I suppose feasting on a successful catch might be a picnic. Killing things and dividing the spoils may just be in the eye of the beholder, and Herschel was a natural born Nepleslian.

Brice Porter was a jaded ex-marine who lost some real good friends before he completed his tour of duty. Ilene was a studious Nepleslian girl whose parents encouraged her to focus on her studies a little too long, perhaps. Ilene's father was a high-ranking officer who occasionally had command of Brice. After a few tragedies, he began to see in the young soldier a quiet gravity that he thought would be ideal in a son-in-law. Once the boy was set up in civilian life, he arranged for them to meet.

One thing led to another and let's just say that they were better off getting married. Herschel was named after his maternal grandfather, though he never saw him much before the old man died. Herschel's father hauled cargo on the home planet, and his mother concentrated on raising the baby. As we said, Ilene waited a bit long before being married and maybe should have given more thought in her younger days to being a wife and a mother. Oh, Herschel was well fed and well loved, but his Mother tried a few things that other mother's wouldn't. Things like “skitching.”

The Nepleslian streets are quite dangerous, especially for women and children. The only really safe place to walk is close to a patrolling police officer, but foot police don't like ANYONE following them too close. Nothing personal, they just can't risk being attacked from behind. Even the officers in the squad cars are nervous about cars too close behind. Hence, Herschel's mom strapped her baby to her back and “skitched,” which means to hang onto the back of a police car while skating.

It was a dangerous activity, but in an already dangerous place and Hershcel's mom was far from the only woman trying it. The police noticed at times, but there cars were well armored enough that they didn't have much to fear from hand-held weapons. Herschel and his mother went on their rare errands like this and soon the boy was as comfortable riding behind cars as he was riding inside of them. Ilene built her son his own set of wheels and taught him to skate in their flat.

Ilene was constantly building things around the flat. She had wanted to be scientist long before she knew the joys of being a mother. Bits of machines, bubbling chemicals, their home did double duty as a home laboratory. Dad came home to a hot meal, a happy family, and cybernetic tune-up.

The cargo business was tough for a man who didn't approve of smuggling and the family was forced to move often as Herschel's father changed jobs. While the safest place was usually at home, Herschel doesn't like to talk about the time the neighbor lady still had a spare key. He was in his early teens, she had just broken up with her boyfriend, he started skitching solo just to get away from that house. He met other skaters that way, mostly daredevils who've gotten themselves killed by now. He personally just grabbed a car, pulled out his datajockey, and “hung” out sometimes ending up two towns away without noticing.

He and his Mom had been modifying his gear by that time. Grippers, grapplers, helmets, and wheels, all had been specially designed for that particular hobby. It didn't require much thought anymore, but his body still felt the potential for a high-speed crash. He became acclimated to this adrenaline, and produced some of his best work in this state. His “tow arms” won him a military scholarship, basically a “don't wreak his head” version of the basic training. He graduated and is currently scouting assignments.

Skills

Communication

Herschel is fluent in Nepleslian and police radio. Skitchers needed to be able to coordinate, after all. He is also an avid writer and something of a InterNEP junkie.

Fighting

Herschel's father had a “grim, but realistic” view of violence. He knew the boy would have to defend himself early on, and so signed him up for martial arts classes. However, he picked very old fashioned martial arts, very dull in training, very high in moral fiber. Herschel hated them, but the philosophy and techniques stuck. After years where the best part of practice was cleaning the gun, he joined the army and finally had a “fun” weapons class. As a smaller opponent, he was still served best by the old techniques, but the two new forms of combat, Power Armor and Grenade, are now his favorites.

Strategy (Tactics/discipline)

Herschel can understand and give out tactical commands and work with his troop to follow those commands efficiently. He knows the importance of teamwork on the battlefield, has been intensively trained in discipline and morale, and is able to recognize the command structure even while under extreme pressure (combat, etc). However, he is too small and non-threatening to inspire “Nepleslian-style” leadership, and his cautious over planning went against the gun-ho grain of most new recruits.

He excells at recognizing ambush points thanks to prankish squad. He knows basic math in order to calculate distances, etc, and can use a tactical map. These are the areas he excells at, and he's been known to study advanced mathematics in his spare time.

Survival

The character knows how to survive in hostile environments. He can build shelters, hunt and forage for food, build a fire, etc. The character can camouflage himself and is familiar with guerrilla warfare tactics. However, Herschel's shelters tend to be a little too permanent at times. A guerrilla operation must be able to break camp quickly and without a trace after all. Also shows a disturbing tendency for wearing camoflage outside the combat field, and indeed inside the base. This would not be so disturbing if he didn't make such a convincing piece of wall.

Maintenance and Repair

Trained in all forms of Ships, Parts, Power Armors, and military aircraft, etc., but specialized in both land vehicles and extra-vehicular repair on space vessels.

Engineering

Specializes in modding power armor with “swiss arms” designed for certain situations. Also is continually reverse and re-engineering his mother's syntho-bot, which extracts drinking water and “gruel” from just about anything organic it finds. So far the water and gruel have absolutely no taste, and the machine has stopped eating pets.

Art and Vocations

Herschel has learned a set of what he affectionately refers to as his “prison skills.” It includes handi-craft like weaving and paper making, as well as being an proficient doujinshi artist. His borderline porn was used as barter during his days at the academy.